James Franco is many things. He’s a director, painter, performance artist, published author, scholar, sculptor and model. We mostly know him as an actor, and a pretty good one
at that.

One NYU professor however, begged to differ, issuing the
Golden Globe-winning star of recent Best Picture contender Milk a D in his
acting class, Showbiz 411 reports. Though he received critical acclaim for his breakthrough performance in Mark Rydell's television biography of James Dean [2001], he was not taken very seriously until Milk. Franco is sexy, fresh and bears an extremely alluring aura yet he backs that up with a cerebral sensitivity and intelligence in his work.

“I did the work, I did well in everything else” the actor
said at the premiere of his latest film, Howl the story of Beat poet Allen
Ginsberg’s obscenity trial, for which he is earning positive reviews. Franco
said that his acting professor likely felt uncomfortable teaching an already
well known actor, and also admitted to missing many classes because he was
shooting director Danny Boyle’s follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire: 127
Hours.

While Franco is earning applause for Howl, it’s his work
in 127 Hours that has critics calling him an Oscar shoo-in. The film—about
hiker Aron Ralston’s torturous time spent trapped by a boulder in a desert cave where he was forced to amputate his own arm. Franco's performance inspired a lengthy standing ovation
when it screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Box Office Magazine is calling Franco’s performance
“a tour-de-force” and EWis
saying that the buzz out of Toronto positions Franco as a lock for an Oscar
nomination. Other likely contenders to emerge from the increasingly-important
film festival: Colin Firth for The King’s Speech and Natalie Portman, who
already wowed ‘em in Venice with her turn in Black Swan.

Franco certainly isn’t letting one nasty grade get him
down. The very busy Spider-Man star is already enrolled at Yale and is
working on his PhD in writing. His debut collection of short stories, Palo
Alto, drops October 19. Howl opens in selected cities this weekend, and 127
Hours hits screens in early November.

And if he needs further consoling, all he need do is take
a look at his resume. Franco’s 16 films have grossed
nearly $1.5 billion [with a B] domestically; he’s won a Golden Globe for his breakthrough performance in James Dean and an Independent Spirit Award for Milk, been nominated for
an Emmy, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and four MTV Movie Awards, and was even
named Man of the Year by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.